Brian Kursar is group vice president and the first head of Enterprise Artificial Intelligence (EAI) at Toyota Motor North America (TMNA). He also serves as an executive technical advisor at Toyota Research Institute (TRI), supporting the Toyota Global AI Accelerator (GAIA) program.

As group vice president and head of artificial intelligence at TMNA, Kursar leads the strategy, design, governance, delivery, frameworks, education, and adoption of AI solutions at Toyota. Focused on innovation and operational excellence, Kursar drives AI initiatives that optimize processes, enhance decision-making, and empower the workforce with AI-driven tools and insights. Committed to Responsible AI, Kursar ensures solutions are ethical, transparent, and aligned with Toyota’s vision for a smarter, more sustainable future.

As executive technical advisor at TRI, Kursar plays a pivotal role in facilitating the transition of AI investments from research to productization, enabling cutting-edge solutions across the organization. As a key driver of Toyota’s Global AI Accelerator Initiative, Kursar fosters global collaboration among Toyota Group companies, spearheading strategies to unify infrastructure, data-sharing platforms, and integration efforts in support of AI development. Additionally, he co-leads the management of In-Vehicle AI agent development initiatives bringing companies together to work towards our zero fatalities goal.

Since beginning his journey with Toyota in 2002, Kursar has served in a number of technology leadership positions, delivering Business solutions across vehicle supply chain, product quality, incentives, call center, R&D, and customer domains while serving in roles in enterprise architecture, data engineering, and advanced analytics. Kursar led the delivery of the first big data platform at Toyota Motor Sales in 2013, and the first Data Science and Advanced Analytics practice in 2015, in support of the Customer 360 company-wide initiative.

Kursar left Toyota in 2015 to join Warner Bros (WB) as vice president of Data Strategy and Architecture, to drive digital transformation and adoption of a data-driven culture. He led strategy and delivery in building out big data and AI capabilities in the Ad/Mar Tech space for the WB Consumer Intelligence and Advertising Activation platform.

In 2018, Kursar returned to Toyota as vice president and chief data scientist for Toyota Connected North America (TCNA). In this role, he delivered Toyota’s Big Data Cloud that supports advanced connected intelligence and mobility services for North America. In 2019, Kursar was promoted to senior vice president and CTO of Toyota Connected. During this time, he led the software delivery for Toyota’s next-generation multimedia system, which included an in-vehicle Virtual Assistant, revamped UX design for infotainment, the Safety Connect telematic services platform, and Mobility Data Services Platforms. These platforms also launched in Australia, India and European markets. Kursar served on the Board of Directors for TCNA from 2019-2024.

In 2020, Kursar took on a dual capped role at TMNA as vice president and chief technology officer – Digital Technology, where he was responsible for driving global digital transformation and technology modernization strategy, aligned with software and cloud-first principles. This included the adoption of a data-driven culture across Toyota divisions and companies, to facilitate innovation and transformation for Toyota, globally. In 2021, he was promoted to group vice president and took on an additional role of chief data officer in 2022. Kursar has been recognized in the top 10 in CDO Magazine’s Top North American Data and AI Influencers for 2024, 2025, and 2026. His leadership and teams work in AI for the manufacturing space was recognized as a finalist in the 2026 Manufacturing Leadership Council Awards in AI Innovation. Brian was also recognized in the Dallas Innovates AI75 as a 2026 AI Innovator.

Kursar has contributed to over 20 technology patents for Toyota in the Connected, Mobility, Safety, Natural Language Understanding (NLU), AI, and Customer Advanced Predictive Modeling domains.

 

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